Village Mothership by Whit Dickey / Matthew Shipp / William Parker

[TAO 06]


Whit Dickey: drums
William Parker: bass
Matthew Shipp: piano

Drummer Whit Dickey, bassist William Parker, and pianist Matthew Shipp present a wondrous collective creation, their first new studio recording since the Shipp-led 1992 classic, Circular Temple. This is also their first assembly since working together in the revered David S. Ware Quartet.

"Everything is melody." –Whit Dickey on the mantra of this music.

In the late 1980s / early ’90s, pianist Matthew Shipp and drummer Whit Dickey were young musicians taking part in the cultural ferment happening on New York City’s Lower East Side, a place where free jazz, avant-rock and all manner of creative arts and political causes were colliding and combining to further the area’s legacy of progressive action. William Parker – although just 2 years older than Dickey – had been part of that progressive action since the mid-70s, and was already a world traveler. As Shipp has noted on numerous occasions, a key aim in his moving to NYC was to make music with Parker. The sound and sensibility of that vintage East Village milieu informed Shipp’s very first trio album, the seminal Circular Temple, recently re-issued by ESP-Disk' : https://matthewshipp.bandcamp.com/album/circular-temple

Although the three have worked together in important configurations in the decades since ( vitally, in the mighty David S. Ware Quartet ), this is their first trio studio album together since that original classic. Village Mothership in title & creation is an homage to the rich environmental ferment that fed the artistic development of these artists. This brand new work together re-ignites this trio’s profound creative pulse, with 30 years of devotion to the music since then clearly evident.

“We created this album in the moment as a trio,” Dickey explains. “The atmosphere of this session was warm and fun, and it was a deep, wondrous experience with the three of us. To me, everything is melody. And the melodies manifest out of the mantra of our playing, the rhythms radiating multi-directionally out of those melodic vibrations. Mystical stuff was happening.”

One human massaging 88 keys pressing pads that strike metal string & cable toward resonance within a wooden chamber. One of the most distinctly gifted artists who has ever laid hands on the instrument.

These are Matthew Shipp's albums as leader for the TAO Forms label: https://taoforms.bandcamp.com/

Portrait by Anna Yatskevich